


After the Fall

by standbygo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 17:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My imagining of Season Three, Episode One. Written well before shooting began, so I take no responsibility for accuracy or the lack thereof.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Catching

John hears the voice again, quietly at first.

“It’s all true… I’m a fake.” 

John cannot hear his own voice, just the tone. Firm, but pleading. Reasoning. Persuasive. He is aware of speaking, but only one word is clear to him: “Please.” Then later, “No. Don’t.”

“Goodbye, John.”

John desperately wants to look away, but can’t. He can’t disobey the final direction to keep his eyes fixed on the figure above. He can hear his own voice again, yelling, ripping his vocal chords to make himself be heard, but it is like shouting through cotton wool. His friend cannot, or will not, hear him.

The fall is so graceful, and takes so long. John thinks for a second that he could simply walk to the building, around the garage, just a casual stroll, and catch him. While he is considering this, he hears the terrible, cracking thump of the body hitting the cobblestones. 

It is this sound that wakes him, much as the dreams with gunfire used to wake him when he first returned from the war. He rushes up out of the nightmare as if up through deep water, sitting bolt upright in bed, his bedclothes cold and sweaty, his last scream getting lost between his brain and his mouth. His arms reach out as though to catch something, someone.

“Jesus, no. God no.” The groan leaks out of him as he realizes where he is, but cannot stop hyperventilating.

“John. John. Wake up.” 

He looks around blindly. He cannot yet see anything but the haze of the dream, terrible hiccups of memories, of blood and hair and staring eyes.

“John. It’s over. You’re safe. John! Wake up, love.”

It is the last word, in the unmistakeably feminine voice, which finally brings him back. He struggles to get his breathing under control again.

“It’s all right, love. It’s all right.” 

“Mary. Mary. I couldn’t… I could have…” John feels her touch on his shoulder. She has learned to only touch gently with her hand, not to try to hold him, not until he is completely rid of the nightmare. She tried holding him once, while he was still in the depths of it, and he threw her off without being aware of it. Any other woman would have packed her bags that second, apologies or no, but Mary stayed. She stayed, and learned, and adapted.

He rubs his face as if to scrub the memory of the dream away. In that moment, he would have willingly peeled the skin off his face if it would mean the nightmares would stop. “Mary, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

John turns to Mary and holds her, his face in her hair. She finally wraps her arms around him and strokes the back of his neck. “Another bad one, love?” she asks softly. 

“Yeah,” he sighs. “This time I believed I could catch him.”


	2. Impressions

Sherlock, lying on top of the musty, slightly damp coverlet, lit a new cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. He had started smoking again out of boredom. He had never been bored to this extent in his life. Other times when he had no case and was restless, he could momentarily distract himself by irritating his brother, insulting Lestrade, practicing his shooting – he could find any number of things to momentarily relieve the monotony. Here, in this glum cottage on the Scottish moors, he had no one to talk to. Thankfully, in Scotland it was easy to get the full strength cigarettes that were so unfashionable in London, and he had returned to his old habit with ease. Now even the nicotine high was boring him.

Is it time, he wondered. Has enough time passed? He had known from the beginning that he would need to exile himself for a long period of time, to allow the furor to die down, for people to forget him and his face. He knew that the more times a person sees a face, the longer it takes to forget it. Lovers, close friends, family would take a long time to forget because they see the face frequently, but the average Londoner, seeing a face in the paper, in passing? Sherlock knew that there were ten daily papers in London, with a total circulation of approximately seven million. He had appeared on the front page at least twice; that meant fourteen million at least fleeting impressions; impossible to calculate how many people had followed the case more carefully. How long would it take for the impression to fade?

It had been over a year since his final confrontation with Moriarty on the roof of St. Bart’s Hospital. The whole plan had worked perfectly, with only the minor snag of accidentally dislocating his shoulder when he rolled out of the truck where the crash pad had been placed, onto the sidewalk. He had had to force himself to concentrate on not flinching when he was placed on the stretcher. His eyes had to remain open, more for the natural effect of such a fall, but he had cemented them so he could not see. He could hear John pleading with the crowd to let him through, and his groans; he could not shut his ears to that sound. 

He had been wheeled on the stretcher into the hospital and into the morgue, and had waited patiently in absolute stillness for the room to clear of people. After a long time, he had heard Molly’s voice say quietly, “It’s all right now.” He had sat up immediately and asked her to set his shoulder right again, but her face quickly went from pale to greenish-gray and he knew he would have to do it himself. Silly girl, she could open up a corpse and pull out its heart and stomach but got wobbly at the thought of setting a joint on a living patient. He jumped off the stretcher and walked impatiently to the doorway, and with a quick, sharp movement pushed the joint back into place.

While they were planning the jump and Sherlock’s assumed death, Molly had contrived increasingly silly and impractical suggestions for secreting him out of St. Bart’s. As a burn victim, face bandaged, transported in an ambulance to…where? That idea only led to a different hospital, and potentially suspicious ambulance drivers. When she came up with the idea of dressing him as a Bedouin and getting him out of the country (as if a Bedouin at Heathrow would be nicely inconspicuous!), he stopped her and asked her to concentrate on the jump itself and he would work out the rest for himself. He could see where her ideas would eventually lead her: “Stay at my place until you… On the couch… Or perhaps…” It was not to be borne. Clearly the product of far too many romance novels, he mused.

In the end, he had simply walked away from St. Bart’s in the middle of the night when she had gone home. His arm bound in a cloth splint to prevent his shoulder from popping out again, he had walked to the door of the morgue and listened carefully for nearby footsteps. Hearing none, he was about to leave when he paused, turned back, found a pen and paper on Molly’s desk and wrote, “Thank you” in his loopy handwriting. He tucked the note under her phone and then swiftly walked out the door without looking back. While he had to admit he could not have accomplished the ruse without her, he was slightly shocked at his own sentimentality. 

He made his way to a side door, used by janitors when they needed a smoke break. At this moment all the janitors had just begun their shift at the other end of the hospital and the way was clear. He quietly, simply, slipped through the door into the dark alleyway.

As the door closed behind him, three figures separated themselves from the shadows. Sherlock smiled wryly and said, “Change please?”

One of the figures, a tall young man wearing a knit hat, nodded at Sherlock’s sling. “You all right then sir?”

“Fine, fine. Shall we go?”

A young woman handed him a hat. “To hide yourself, sir. Not many about this time of night, but just to be sure.”

Sherlock took the hat and examined it, automatically drawing conclusions from the signs that were so obvious to him. A tweed newsboy hat with a wide brim, relatively clean. Its previous owner had been in his forties, heavyweight, unemployed family man; the hat had been lost during a mugging, but the man had not been badly injured. More immediately, the hat would cover Sherlock’s hair and the brim would cast sufficient shadow over his features. 

The tall man draped a ragged but clean blanket over Sherlock’s shoulders, covering the sling and helping him to better blend in amongst his escorts. Sherlock nodded subtly in approval, and pulled the cap on.

The moment the cap went on his head he suddenly remembered the deerstalker hat Lestrade had given him. He had felt a fool wearing it in front of the press and had pulled it off again the moment John allowed it. He hated all hats, but that one in particular. Why, then, did he feel remorse at the memory? He wondered fleetingly if John would throw the hat out now. Why should he care? Why these feelings of… was it nostalgia? 

Repulsed by his own weakness, he briefly considered removing the newsboy hat, but realized that logically it was the best disguise for the moment. Instead he said curtly, “Let’s go.”

There were very few people on the streets, as the bars had already closed and dawn was still at least an hour away. Occasionally a pedestrian walked past the little group but they would look away and speed up their pace. Sherlock had to give credit to his network; they truly were invisible.

A cab, of course, was impossible – too great a risk of recognition at such close quarters - so Sherlock and his escorts walked to the Vauxhall Arches, arriving just before dawn. The three attendants led him through the labyrinthine alleys, finally arriving at a crumbling doorway. The tallest one, who Sherlock recognized as the bike courier he had assigned to knocking John down in front of St. Bart’s, beckoned Sherlock through the entrance. He gestured to the corner of the room, where a mattress and blanket lay. 

“We fixed this up for you,” he said. “You can stay here until you’re ready to move on. You’ll be safe, no one will bother you.”

Sherlock looked around the empty room and realized suddenly that his homeless network had not only provided him with the basic necessities of life, but had given him the greatest gift they had – privacy.

“Thank you,” he said. “I am most grateful.” It was one of the few times he had said this in his life and truly meant it.

The young man nodded and stepped out. Sherlock watched him sit down just outside the doorway; clearly he meant to carry out his promise to leave Sherlock undisturbed and unmolested.

Sherlock stood and listened. The city was starting to awaken. He could hear cars, dogs barking, trams – the usual noise of the city was slowly ramping up, and he knew that in less than an hour it would be a full roar. And he was now cut off from it in every way. 

Suddenly he felt more tired than he had ever felt in his life. He crossed quickly to the mattress, pulled the blankets over himself, and fell asleep.

*

When Sherlock woke, he initially thought he had been asleep for only a few hours; however, upon reassessing the angle of light through the doorway he realized he had instead slept the day through. Once again he was shocked at himself: under normal circumstances he would sleep four hours a night and be perfectly refreshed. The most he had ever slept at one go was eight hours, and that was after being drugged. Now, without chemical interference, he had slept through an entire day and night. 

He lay there for a moment and ran through the check list of his body; all the major body parts seemed to be in working order. He then jumped to his feet, testing his body for stiffness. Aside from the usual aches and pains from sleeping in the rough, he felt fine. He pulled the sling off his shoulder and threw it aside – he would not need it anymore and it might only attract attention. He stepped out of the doorway and met another member of his network waiting outside, clearly still standing guard. 

“If you’re hungry, sir, there’s some nosh,” the man said, indicating a takeaway bag. Sherlock smelled the curry and was about to refuse when he realized he was terribly hungry. He silently accepted the food.

While he was eating he mused upon his own recent behaviour, analyzing his actions as an outside observer. Sentimental gestures, profoundly deep sleep, loss of self-discipline – why this abrupt change in his personality? If it were anyone else he would have diagnosed shock. But he had been through experiences in the past that would have traumatized other men, and he had walked away and never thought of it again. What was so different this time? 

He set the empty box of curry aside and placed his palms together to think. He needed to leave London; there was no doubt he would be safe for a time in Vauxhall Arches but he could not live like this for the long term. He must leave London and not stay in any one place for more than a few days. He had to allow the publicity around Moriarty’s plot to die down, and also allow time for Moriarity’s network to lose interest in him, lending credence to his “suicide”. Anyone who recognized him, or was recognized to be helping him, would be in danger and he could not allow that. John’s safety was now secure, as was Mrs. Hudson’s and (begrudgingly) Lestrade’s, and he wanted the situation to stay that way. He must leave London today or he might yet be detected.

He found himself speaking, interrupting his own thoughts, startling himself yet again. “Where is Dr. Watson?” he asked.

*

Madness, to come here. Stupid, emotional, sentimental, all the things he despised in others. And yet here he was, skulking in the shadows, watching John and Mrs. Hudson standing by the gravestone with his name on it.

How angry John would be if he knew Moriarty’s body was just under his feet.

He watched Mrs. Hudson walk back towards the church, while John stayed behind. Sherlock was too far away to hear John’s words, but he could hear the murmur of his voice. Sherlock saw John touch the gravestone and was suddenly wracked with guilt: guilt for putting his only friend through this, and sorrow that he might well never see him again. 

John put his hand to his face and was clearly sobbing openly. As Sherlock watched the unabashed anguish of his friend, he felt something shift inside him, like a puzzle piece fitting into place, or a key locking a door. It felt familiar, comfortable; something he hadn’t truly felt since he realized what he had to do.

At last, Sherlock was back under his own control. Seeing John’s raw emotion allowed him, finally, to restore his equilibrium. He felt his powers returning to him. 

He watched John straighten, and perform a perfect about face; his military background was showing itself. As John stiffly walked away from the grave, Sherlock turned away as well, without regret and without looking back, moving quickly and decisively towards his next challenge. 

*

That was over a year ago, and Sherlock had been travelling around the British Isles, not staying in any place more than two nights. He had perfected the art of hiding in plain sight, and was certain he had not ever been recognized or drawn any kind of attention to himself. He was no longer handicapped by the weakness and emotions that had troubled him so after the fall. 

He took another long pull on the cigarette, feeling the chemical burn move through his lungs. He was bored of inaction, bored of Scotland, bored of Ireland, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, all the places he had been hiding over the past year. He was bored of… smoking.

He stood up and stubbed out the half smoked cigarette. He took the pack and threw it in the dustbin. He tucked his few possessions into the pockets of his coat. The risk, he decided, was worth taking. He would return to London, dismantle whatever might remain of Moriarty’s network, and clear his name. 

He refused to allow himself to think that the end result might be to get his life back.


	3. Clearing Up

To all outward appearances, John Watson had grieved appropriately for his friend and flatmate, separated himself from the scandal, and moved on with his life. John knew better. The nightmares plagued him at least twice weekly and he still imagined he could see Sherlock’s tall figure in the shadows of 221B Baker Street when he was alone in the flat. 

In the weeks immediately following Sherlock’s suicide, Lestrade had quietly dropped all the charges against John, even the charge of assault against the Chief Superintendent. When Lestrade rang up to let him know, John thanked him with all the politeness he could muster, and hung up. He was not yet ready to forgive Lestrade for his role in the scandal, for doubting Sherlock. If this was Lestrade’s way of apologizing, fine, but John was in no mood to help him feel better.

He had worked slowly but steadily over several weeks with Mrs. Hudson to clear Sherlock’s things out of 221B Baker Street. While he worked, John would occasionally pick up a book that Sherlock had made him read, or an object he remembered Sherlock fiddling with, and feel grief overwhelming him again. He had made frequent trips to the loo to gain control of his emotions – he knew he couldn’t bear to break down in front of his landlady. He hoped she would just assume he’d drunk too much tea.

Mrs. Hudson, on the other hand, worked and chatting constantly, always cheerful, never showing any distress, until the day when all the things were packed and in boxes. She looked over the huge pile and burst into tears without warning. John held her while she wept for an hour. When she had finally stopped and they had both had a cup of strong tea, they agreed to not give away the items to a school as they had originally planned, but to put the items in storage for a time until they felt strong enough to do so. John moved the boxes down to the musty basement flat, closed and locked the door.

By mutual and unspoken agreement, they left the bullet riddled painted smiley face on the wall. 

Without all of Sherlock’s possessions scattered around like spreading mould, the flat was surprisingly empty. John did not own much when he came to 221B; he had brought his clothes and his laptop, and had had little need to own more in the face of Sherlock’s rubble. Now it looked so different John could almost convince himself it was a completely different flat.

He had briefly considered moving out himself, but Mrs. Hudson had looked so bereft when he had hinted at the idea that he immediately discarded it. She also offered to reduce the rent drastically. John realized he was in a similar state to when he had first arrived in London, before he had met Sherlock – insufficient funds to live alone, and no tolerance for a flatmate. At the same time he recognized that Mrs. Hudson was grieving Sherlock’s death as well, and perhaps needed him to stay around. He could not bear to leave Mrs. Hudson either, so he had accepted her offer. 

After a time he landed a position at King George Hospital. While he was certain he could have had a job at St. Bart’s if he had asked for one, he knew he couldn’t enter that hospital again. He was happy to be busy and practicing medicine again, but generally kept to himself and shied away from social occasions and invitations to the pub by colleagues. He did not want to make friends with anyone, nor have idle conversations that would turn in directions that might include his history with Sherlock.

Due to his known history with Sherlock, what with the scandal in the papers and blog, John was certain people were curious about his past; however, they clearly respected him sufficiently to not address it directly, and all conversations were strictly professional. Once, a particularly stupid intern asked if he was the same John Watson that had worked with that scam artist; John fixed him with a glare and didn’t answer. Later he heard his head nurse berating the young man for his impertinence. He smiled and reminded himself to give her a raise. 

*

He met Mary at a fundraising event at the hospital after he had been working there about a year. He had tried to beg off, as the idea of being at an event that might force him to talk to people gave him the horrors, but his supervisor Laurence had told him, “It’s mandatory, and by the way, wear a tux.” 

That evening found him in a hired suit and feeling like an idiot. He hated the tightness of the tie around his neck and the stiff, uncomfortable shirt; he thought of his favourite jumper and jeans with some longing. He tried to stay in the corners and avoid meeting anyone’s eye, hoping no one would approach him and, God forbid, talk about Sherlock. He was looking at the clock and trying to work out how soon he could politely make his exit, when a woman with short blonde hair, only an inch shorter than himself, touched his arm. “You’re John Watson, aren’t you? Dr. Laurence told me to look for you and make sure you didn’t skulk all night.”

That evening had led to coffee in the hospital café, to lunches, and finally to dinner dates in restaurants. She was the head of fundraising for the hospital and had only returned to England recently, having worked in America for many years. Because she had been outside of England at the time of Sherlock’s rise to fame, John felt sure that she was completely ignorant of the scandal. He found it refreshing to speak about something other than Sherlock or medicine. He was more at ease with her than he had felt in years. 

One night he found the courage to ask her to come round to his flat for drinks, and she had agreed. The moment she entered the living room, however, he saw her stare at the painted smiley face on the wall with more than passing curiosity. 

“John, dear,” she said quietly, “why are there bullet holes in your wall?”

The creases around his eyes deepened. “A fair question,” he said, collapsing onto the sofa and burying his face in his hands. The face was so much a part of the flat he hardly noticed it anymore and had forgotten how it would look to outside eyes. He’d blown it, he thought. There was no way she would want to carry on with him if she knew. 

She sat down next to him and took his hand. “John, did something awful happen to you?”

He looked up at her in surprise. “Who told you?”

“No one.” She smiled sadly. “No one had to. We have lovely times, John, but when you laugh, you look guilty for a second, as if you have no right to be happy. I like you a lot, John. You’re a good man, and you deserve to be happy.”

John looked into her eyes and felt something shift inside. “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything, and I’ll understand if you want to leave when you know it all.”

She looked puzzled. “Why on earth would I want to leave?”

The telling took two hours, two pots of tea and two glasses of whisky, neat. The whisky was to help with the telling of Sherlock’s suicide at St. Bart’s. 

When he finally finished, they sat in silence in the darkened room. John stared into the golden lights in his whisky. 

Finally Mary spoke. “What... what a lucky man he was.”

John looked up, startled. Mary was looking at him, tears in her eyes. 

“What a lucky man to have a friend like you. He reached out to you at the end, John – not his brother, not a lover, but his friend. He didn’t die alone. What a lucky man.”

John swallowed hard. “Mary, I swear he was not a fake. I don’t know why he said it, and I don’t understand why he did it, but he wasn’t.” 

“Of course he wasn’t a fake, John,” she said briskly, brushing away her tears. “You’re not stupid, you’d know a fake if you saw one, let alone live with one for nearly two years.” 

He nearly choked on the laughter and tears colliding in his throat. 

She stayed that night, sleeping in John’s bed, fully clothed, John holding her tightly. He woke her in the morning with a deep kiss and they made love carefully and slowly as the sun rose. Afterwards he stroked her hair and said softly, “A lucky man indeed.”


	4. Radio Radio

Mrs. Hudson took Mary under her wing as quickly as she had John, and was thrilled when a few months later they asked her permission for Mary to move in. John felt better than he had in years, and while the nightmares still struck occasionally, Mary had learned how to bring him back into the present and help the dream to fade away. 

Last night’s nightmare had been the worst one for a long time, though. It had ruined any possibility of sleep for the rest of the night and he only managed to get through his shift at the hospital through the help of large doses of strong black coffee. 

As he plodded up the stairs of 221B at the end of the day, he could tell Mary was already home from the sound of the radio. It was the only thing about her that he could find fault with, her fondness for terrible pop music. John’s own parents had listened to progressive rock, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and such, and he suspected that his dad would have had a coronary on the spot if he knew of the music being played in a Watson household. However, John thought, feeling embarrassed, a man who wakes up screaming every month or so does not have the right to complain to his girl about her choice in music. 

Mary was facing the sink doing the washing up when John entered the flat, dancing in place to the music. Unlike Sherlock, she was an active contributor to the cleanliness of the household. John had simply given up his military preference for cleanliness while Sherlock had been alive, but he and Mary shared a strange desire to have clean dishes occasionally. 

John leaned against the doorframe and smiled; God, she was beautiful. He admired the curve of her hips in her jeans. While she always dressed professionally for work – skirts, a crisp blouse and a blazer, with high heels that added three inches to her height – she always changed into jeans and trainers the moment she got home – ‘putting on her civvies’, she called it.

She had the music turned up quite high, and with the water running she clearly hadn’t heard him enter. He was considering walking up behind her and seeing what would happen when a new song came on the radio.

“Well you can tell by the way I use my walk/I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk…”

Suddenly John felt as if he had been nailed to the floor. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe. He could suddenly smell chlorine, the heaviness of wearing a parka in a humid room, red lights dancing across his face.

“Ah ah ah ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…”

Mary still had her back to him, swaying her hips, singing along with the song softly. John opened his mouth to speak – “Mary, please turn it off,” - but his voice was paralyzed. His field of vision was filling with stars, and he knew he would pass out soon.

“M… Mmm…” His voice came out as a desperate whisper, louder than before but not loud enough to be heard. “Mmm… Moriarty!”

The horror of saying Moriarty’s name instead of Mary’s broke his paralysis. Released from his frozen state, he threw himself across the room to the radio and turned the power switch with such excessive force he broke it off. In the sudden silence, John heard his own breathing, ragged, hoarse, and saw that Mary had turned round and was staring at him. 

The terrible panic left him as soon as the music stopped and he stared helplessly at Mary. Dear God. She was a smart, beautiful woman who could have any man she liked. There was no way she should carry on with a sad sack like himself, with the nightmares and the panic attacks and irrational fears. Her one pleasure was her radio, and he’d broken it like a madman or a brute.

Mary slowly and solemnly dried her hands on a towel and sat down at the kitchen table. John sat down opposite her. In the long silence, he found himself fixing his gaze on a chemical burn on the table that Sherlock had made with one of his experiments. John absently rubbed at the mark with his forefinger.

After a long while, he heard Mary take a deep breath. He prepared himself.

“John, the therapy’s not working, is it.”

It was not a question. He shook his head slowly, without looking up. 

“You go every week, and have done ever since Sherlock died. It’s been nearly two years. You still get nightmares, and they’re getting steadily worse.”

John looked up in surprise. “I thought… it’s maybe one a month now, isn’t it?” 

“No, John,” she replied sadly. “It’s at least three times a week. Most times I can’t wake you.”

John was shocked. He had honestly thought things were improving. 

She gestured towards the radio. “What triggered that, please?”

He reminded her of Moriarty’s serial bombings and the confrontation at the pool. “The only thing that saved us was his mobile ringing, it distracted him. That song was his ringtone.” 

“Ah.” Mary nodded and went silent again. 

John felt he must give her an easy way out and took a deep breath. “Mary, you’ve been a…” he struggled to find the right word, “…a Godsend for me. I don’t use that word lightly. You’ve made me feel happier than I ever thought possible. But it’s clear to both of us…” He paused and swallowed hard. “…that I’m broken, and I don’t know if I can ever be whole again. You deserve better than this. I’ll… I’ll understand if…” 

“Shut up, John,” Mary said smartly. “I’ll not be leaving you, nor will you leave me. That’s final.” She pointed her finger at him in a way that reminded him of his Major during his basic training in the army, and his back straightened involuntarily.

“Therapy isn’t going to fix you. Nor is working all hours, nor tea, nor whisky, nor even me. I think what you need to do is fix Sherlock.”

John stared at her in confusion.

“Fix him. Clear his name. Find Moriarty and get him in jail for what he did. That, my dear Dr. Watson, is what will fix you.”


	5. Patterns

John began by returning to his blog and rereading all the cases he had written that involved Moriarty. He wrote out the key factors for each case on individual pieces of paper. The paper began to spill off the edges of his desk in the front room, so he moved the lot to Sherlock’s old room, which he and Mary had changed over into a study. 

Then he went down to the basement flat and pulled out Sherlock’s papers on his cases. Boxes and boxes he brought back upstairs and tried to sort into relevant piles, trying to find patterns. Mary helped, trying to bring order to the chaos but even she felt challenged by the sheer volume of information. 

At one point John sat back on his heels and stared at the expanse of paper spread over the floor and stuck to the walls. He felt a wave of helplessness wash over him. How could he possibly do this? He didn’t have Sherlock’s talent for seeing patterns, for deductions. Hell, no one did. Sherlock had never found a pattern that would allow him to track down Moriarty, what made John think he could?

He took a deep breath and tried to quell the mounting panic. The world’s only consulting detective wasn’t here, was he, and there was no one that knew him better when he was alive than John Watson. Well, there was Mycroft… No, he couldn’t bear to ask Mycroft for help. As Sherlock had once said, “I have to do it or it doesn’t count.” In that particular context John had been infuriated by Sherlock’s narcissism, but it felt true for John now.

John remembered what Sherlock had said at the trial: that Moriarty was a spider in the middle of a web. He realized he was focusing on the web rather than on the spider. With renewed energy, John dug through the boxes until he found the few sheets of paper he had gotten from the Sun reporter about Richard Brook.

Richard Brook was the actor who said he was Moriarty, paid by Sherlock to play the part of the supervillain. John had known in his gut that this was a carefully concocted lie by Moriarty, spread by Kitty Reilly and the popular press. The key to this would be to disprove Richard Brook’s existence and conversely proving Moriarty’s. 

John opened his laptop and began searching for references to Richard Brook the actor, outside of the public links to Sherlock. He had opened several windows and was looking through them when Mary leaned in the doorway. “Tea, John?”

“Only if it’s industrial strength.” 

She entered with a mug. “I anticipated that,” she said.

“Ta, love.”

Mary pushed some newspapers aside to put down the mug, and looked over the desk. “All this paper…” she murmured. “I suppose it would be too optimistic to hope for a single envelope in the middle of all this saying, ‘And the winner is…’” 

John smiled. “Yeah, a bit.”

Mary looked over his shoulder. “What a funny coincidence,” she said.

“Hm?” said John, still focused on the screen. 

“Reichenbach. Rich Brook.”

John snapped to her with full attention. “What?”

She pointed at the newspaper she had pushed aside for his mug, with an article about Sherlock’s recovery of the painting of The Falls of Reichenbach, his first case that had broken in the media. “Reichenbach, Rich Brook,” she repeated.

“You’ve lost me.”

“Oh, I took German at school. Not many did in my year, so we got to horse around mostly. I did pick up a few things though.” She pointed at the newspaper. “Reichen mean rich, like wealthy, a rich person. Bach, is a river, a brook. Rich Brook. Just thinking how funny a coincidence it is, this paper here and you looking at a page about a Richard Brook.”

John became keenly aware that he must look ridiculous with his mouth hanging open. Mary looked at him curiously. 

“It’s not a coincidence, is it?” she asked.

“No, Mary, I don’t think so.”


	6. Repulsion

John finally tracked down Kitty Reilly at her home. He’d originally gone directly to the newspaper office, but was told she no longer worked there. He decided to take the risk and went directly to her flat and was surprised to catch her there. 

He was expecting a hostile greeting, but instead she let him in without any discernible emotion at all. He sat on the same sofa where he and Sherlock had waited for her, handcuffed together, two years earlier. John sat on one side, almost as if leaving room for Sherlock to sit. The room was dusty and messy, as though she hadn’t bothered to clear up for weeks.

John suspected that Kitty would resist helping him and so he had rehearsed a backstory. “I want to track down Richard Brook,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt him, it’s all over now. I just want to better understand how and why Sherlock did it, creating Moriarty and inventing all those cases. I’m still in denial, I guess, and I need to understand.” He waiting, hoping he had been convincing enough.

Her voice was flat, dull. “Haven’t heard from him since… since the story broke. I don’t know why. After your friend…” She stopped and swallowed hard. “Well, after that Rich was free, wasn’t he? Could be himself again. Maybe he was afraid the police would press fraud charges so he disappeared. I don’t know.”

“You didn’t search for him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged indifferently.

John was puzzled by her demeanour. When they had last met, she had been brash, confident, bold. Now it seemed as though she cared about nothing. “Do you have any information that could help me find him?” he asked.

She crossed to her desk and pulled a thick file out of a drawer. “This is everything. Take it. I don’t need it.” The stack of papers resounded with a solid thud on the dirty, stained coffee table, sending up particles of dust that swirled in the air. John’s gaze fell to the tan coloured file.

He was astonished at how simple this was. Kitty returned to her seat and absently chewed on a fingernail. Why would she give up all the information on the case that had made her name, without a second glance?

John glanced up from the file to Kitty’s face. “Why aren’t you at the Sun anymore?” 

“Oh… after the story broke, I got a big promotion, bold new investigative journalist and all that. I was able to coast on the Brook story for a while. But they finally realized that I had nothing else. A one story wonder, I suppose. I… I didn’t have the heart to write about anything else.” She looked up suddenly. “Hey. Maybe your friend killed him? Killed Rich?”

John gritted his teeth and focused on not balling his hands into fists. “No. I don’t believe that.”

Kitty visibly deflated. “Neither do I,” she said.

She looked down at her hands. John had learned from Sherlock how to watch for small details; now he noticed her bitten down fingernails and scarred cuticles.

“Look,” she said. “When I heard about Holmes… I didn’t mean…” She looked up at John with dull eyes. “Wasn’t my intention, all right? It was just a story.”

John understood finally – her firing from the newspaper, her fingernails, her depressive behaviour. “Do you blame yourself?” he asked softly.

She looked down at her raw hands again. After a long pause, she jerked her head in the smallest nod.

John stood up and crossed to the door. “Good,” he said, and walked out.

Kitty sat in place for a long time after he left, studying her destroyed fingernails. After a time she stood, crossed to her desk again and pulled a small Dictaphone out of a drawer. She pressed rewind, then play. 

Sherlock Holmes’ voice, tinny and small, filled the room. “You repel me.”

Rewind, play. 

“You repel me.”

Rewind, play.

“You repel me.”

Rewind, play.


	7. Shadows

John lay awake in bed that night, his mind too full of questions to sleep. His only lead to Richard Brook had come to naught. All the ‘evidence’ he had of Richard Brook’s existence was the newspaper articles, photos and CV that Kitty had given him, and in this day and age, one could create those on the computer in an afternoon. He knew how easy it was to just add information to the web, unsubstantiated and unchecked. And there was no way he could track a birth certificate or driver’s license with a common name like Brook (hell, he might as well be looking for the name Smith) without help from the police – help John was unlikely to get. Besides which, he wanted to prove the opposite, that Brook did not exist, and that Moriarty did. It was a terrible catch-22, and John knew that without Moriarty himself he could not get much farther. 

Could Sherlock have killed him? John’s gut instinct was to reject the idea outright but he forced himself to consider it. He had to admit that he had never seen Sherlock so angry as when they were at Kitty’s flat and Brook was trying to prove his story. “Stop it, stop it now!” he had shouted, and Brook had run away like a frightened rabbit.

But what purpose would Sherlock have had in killing Brook? He was not a man to be driven by revenge. And only a living Richard Brook – that is, Moriarty - would have been able to prove Sherlock’s innocence. 

John suddenly remembered something Brook/Moriarty said, while babbling about himself: “I’m on telly, on a children’s show.” The realization hit John like an electric shock. If Brook was such a well-known actor to be on a children’s show, why had no one recognized him as such while he was on trial, on the front page of every paper? From his understanding, the forewoman of the jury had had three children under the age of ten, surely she would have recognized him?

As John pondered this new train of thought, now fully awake, he became aware of a rustling sound downstairs in the kitchen. Mice, damn it, he thought. It was a wonder they weren’t overrun with mice with the mess when Sherlock was alive – or perhaps the mess had repelled even the mice. God, he hoped it wasn't a rat, he hated rats. He’d buy some poison in the morning. 

John abruptly sat up, listening acutely to the noise. He thought to himself, That is one damned big mouse. With shoes.

He cursed himself for a fool. Kitty had probably been putting on an act and had alerted “Richard Brook” after his visit. Now Moriarty knew John was on to him, trying to track him down, and had sent someone after him. Or was himself downstairs.

Mary stirred out of sleep, wakened by John’s sudden movements. “Another nightmare, love?” she asked muzzily. 

He put his finger to his lips, leaned over and whispered directly in her ear. “There’s someone in the kitchen.”

“Nonsense, dear, it’s just another dream…” She trailed off into silence. After a moment, she whispered, “I hear it too.”

They both sat rigid in bed, listening. Remembering the lessons of observation taught so clearly by Sherlock himself, John could discern only one set of footsteps, he was certain of that. So, it was one man, alone. Whoever it was clearly was skilled at being very quiet. If John had been asleep the noise would certainly not have wakened him, and because of his years in the war he was a light sleeper. The floors of 221B were creaky, but the intruder was treading so lightly the floors made no noise, just the whisper of clothing. 

Both John and Mary heard at the same time the sound of footsteps moving out of the kitchen and into the hallway. John visualized the layout of the flat; the intruder would pass through the short hallway, past the study to the stairway, then up a short flight of stairs to the bedroom. John quietly opened his bedside table, pulled out his service revolver and aimed at the door of the bedroom. They waited, barely breathing. 

The footsteps stopped and turned into the study halfway down the hall. After a moment John could hear the faint rustle of paper. The man was clearly searching the downstairs room.

John eased out of bed without a sound. He looked back at Mary, who was pale with fear, and hesitated. He grabbed her right hand and forced it into position around the gun. 

“If you need to, pull very, very hard on the trigger,” he whispered. “There are six rounds. Hold the gun with both hands to keep it steady. I’ll call you when it’s safe.” He looked her in the eyes to make sure she understood. She nodded with a jerk of her head, her eyes wide and staring at the doorway.

John made his way to the door. He was barefoot and could move as quietly as the intruder. He slipped carefully down the stairway, walking along the sides of the stairs to avoid the creaking boards. Peering around the corner down the hallway, he could see that the door to the study was ajar. He stepped into the doorway, and by the light of the streetlamps could dimly see the figure on the other side of the room. The man was searching the closet, his head and shoulders completely inside. John saw his advantage – even if the man was armed, if John caught him by surprise now he would have no chance to draw. 

John approached the closet. Being a smaller man, he had learned in school and later in the army, how to use his short stature and strength to his advantage and had turned to wrestling. The discipline returned to him as he sprang, landing on the intruder’s back and using his stronger left arm to gain a choke hold. With his right arm, John grabbed the intruder’s right wrist and forced it behind his back. The intruder made a muffled noise of surprise and tried to stand.

John held on with all his might, tightening his hold around the man’s neck. The intruder’s left arm was grabbing at John’s choking arm, trying to loosen his grip. John realized that the man was defending instead of reaching for a gun. He hoped that meant the man was unarmed and pulled harder, trying to shut off the man’s oxygen.

Then the intruder said, “John, leave off.” 

John released immediately as if he had been burned and backed away until he crashed against the wall. “What? _What?”_

The light from the street shone on the figure’s chest, but his face was still in shadow. John saw an arm, a hand, palm out. He stared at the hand, uncomprehending, unbelieving.

Suddenly the room was dazzlingly bright and John was blinded. He heard Mary’s voice shouting, “Put your hands on your head, NOW!”

John, dazed, obeyed instinctively, realizing belatedly the order was not meant for him. Through the glare he saw Mary standing in the doorway in her white dressing gown, one hand on the light switch, the other aiming the gun at the figure on the other side of the room. John noted with distracted wonder that her hands were steady.

The man had not moved, his arms still out in a conciliatory position. “My dear lady,” he began.

Mary moved the gun a few inches to her left and fired. Half of the desk chair next to the figure disappeared into splinters. She refocused her target. “Hands up, now,” she said firmly.

The figure slowly obeyed. John’s eyes finally adjusted to the light and saw the tall figure’s face. At that moment, he had no more doubts.

The man smiled. “Oh John, I like this one, very much. Well done.” He turned to Mary, hands still on top of his head. “We haven’t met, I think. My name is Sherlock Holmes.”

He turned back to John and spoke casually, as though they were sitting at the breakfast table, not in the middle of the night with a gun pointed at him, and with John still shaken and wide eyed in the corner:

“John, I need my microscope. Where have you put it?”

 

End credits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first fanfic. Thanks for reading.
> 
> Edit: A very minor change. I had a facepalm moment and realized that I had referred to mice in this chapter, not remembering Moffatt's hints for Season 3: "Rat/Wedding/Bow". So I've added a brief reference to rats. Just stared work on the sequel today - stay tuned!


End file.
